Instant Dinner Party

Posted January 24, 2011 by Andy

Spoiler alert: If you come over to our house for dinner any time between now and the first day of spring, there’s about a 90% chance we’re going to cook this for you. The pork shoulder ragu you see above is our new obsession. It’s the ideal dish for Sunday dinner, or even better, an informal winter dinner party: It’s warm, it’s hearty, it smells insanely good, it goes well with red wine, and my God, is it tasty. But none of those are the main reason we’re so obsessed with this right now — no, the best part of this one is that, once the guests arrive, your work is already done. All the prep — what little of it there was — is four hours ago, a distant memory. Which is increasingly the way we like it. It seems like the older we get, and the more cooking we do, the simpler we want our entertaining to be. For sure, there was a day when we would have spent the afternoon, Martha-style, frantically scooping out little cucumber cups with a mellon-baller and filling them with creme fraiche and topping them with smoked salmon and dainty sprigs of dill, when we would have been stirring (and stirring) risotto and mandolining three different kinds of potatoes and being distracted, instead of hanging out with our guests. But then kids happened, and our tastes changed, and those days are gone. These days, I love nothing more than a one-pot meal — I am a braising machine! — and this really basic pork ragu over pasta is where our heads are at right now. It’s an instant party: you just take it out of the oven, shred the pork, boil some pasta, and you’re done. If the kids don’t like pork, they can eat the pasta; if they do like pork, then I love them, and there’s still plenty for everybody. Though I should add that, as good as this is on a cold winter night, it’s even better for lunch the next day. If it weren’t for a little thing known as coronary heart disease, I would eat this every day for the rest of my life. —Andy

Pork Shoulder RaguBecause this is pork, it goes well with a salad that has a little sweetness to help cut the porkiness. (That’s Jenny’s word.) Greens with pear, blue cheese, and pine nuts? Greens with pistachios and pomegranates? Either would be good with our standard vinaigrette.

Also, this serves about six normal-size people. If you are cooking for more than that, cook another pound of pasta, up the meat to 3 pounds, and add few more tomatoes, and another 1/2 cup of red wine. Like the other braised pork recipe we ran recently, it’s nearly impossible to get wrong, so don’t get too hung up on the exactness of measurements. But if you use 3 pounds of pork and keep the liquid at a third of the way up the meat, that will be enough to feed four parents and four kids. With leftovers.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Liberally salt and pepper the pork roast. Add olive oil and butter to large Dutch oven and heat over medium-high until butter melts, but does not burn. Add pork roast to pan and brown on all sides, about 8-10 minutes in all.

Add the onion and garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add tomatoes, wine, thyme, oregano, fennel, and hot sauce and bring to a boil. Cover, and put in oven. Braise for 3-4 hours, turning every hour or so. Add more liquid (water, wine, or tomato sauce) if needed. (The liquid should come to about 1/3 of the way up the pork.) Meat is done when it’s practically falling apart. Put on a cutting board and pull it apart with two forks, then add back to pot and stir. Cook 1 to 2 pounds pasta according to package directions. When it’s is ready, put into individual bowls and top with ragu and lots of Parm.

Jenny will have me remind you that there are many more recipes where this one came from in Dinner: A Love Story.

Sounds fabulous! And I had the same thought as Nancy above. It does sound like a great slow-cooker recipe. Any other readers have a clever conversion for how to shift this from the stove top to the crock pot? Would love to get this started on a Saturday morning and then when we get home from basketball, fencing, dance and a birthday party we could have a quick meal all but ready. I have a great fondness for obedient appliances that can work without supervision. But on the stovetop or in the crock pot, I’m trying this soon. Thanks!

Thanks for another great recipe, Jenny & Andy! @Nancy and Tara: We make pulled pork in the crockpot, using 3-4 lb pork shoulder, and it takes 6-8 hours on low. I would think this would be similar. Maybe be close to watch it the first time so you get the timing down, but it is virtually impossible to screw up. Good luck!

I am totally with you on loving simple “make ahead” meals for guests. I used to feel this need to impress guests with my cooking prowess, but I would end up totally stressed out, sweating, swearing, and depleted by the time the food was on the table. I love making something simple (but delicious) that will allow me to enjoy some wine with my guests and relax instead of distractedly chitchatting while I saute and chop. I will definitely try this out next time someone comes over!

I would much rather crock pot then leave the oven on for a few hrs… how long do you think it would take in the crock 3 hrs on high? 6 on low? something in the middle?

I did your other braised pork (the pomegranate one) in the crock last week for 4 hrs on low and it was a little dry for me (so now I am asking your opinion instead of me guessing)… REGARDLESS the sauce was amazing!! Thank you!!

Andrea – I’m such a novice in the world of slow-cookers. (I do not own one.) So I leave it to my readers to respond to this. As always, though, if you are doing it in a dutch oven, the liquid level should be monitored carefully so it is always about a third of the way up the pork. Let me know how it turns out!

Forget my question about the fennel seeds (I ended up putting them in with the rest of the stuff). This dish was amazing. Haven’t done the dishes yet — needed to write to you and thank you! A great cozy winter meal on a Sunday night. It’s a keeper!

Made this on Sunday, when we had friends come over for the Duke game. Duke lost, but I won with this dinner. Hubs was a skeptic, but he ended up loving it. The meat was SUPER tender. Everyone liked it, except my 13 year old son, who said it was “so-so,” which actually means, “it was great, make it again.” 🙂

Intended to make this on Sunday but made it today on Snowday instead. We LOVED it. And husband Jaked it up around 3 today, deciding cocktail hour on a snow day should be the same as when visiting the tropics. Gotta love midafternoon Manhattans.

Just to followup on cooking this in the crock pot, I tried this today and it was yummy! I braised the pork in a skillet, deglazed with the wine and threw everything in the crock pot. I set it for 9 hours on low because that’s when dinner was, but I am sure 4 or so would be fine. Made for a wonderful, easy mid-week meal to fix in the morning and come home to after a long day at work!

we made this last night — correction, my husband made it with some email and phone call direction from me. very yummy meal for a cold night. ours was overly juicy, though. I think our pork was super fatty and rendered down a lot, which made the sauce very greasy. next time I’ll have him trim the meat more I guess! any other ideas to thicken it up?

I made this last night for my mom and we loved it! First recipe from your site – boy, you guys passed the test with flying colors! I totally forgot to put in the fennel but it turned out great anyways. I’m a fairly inexperienced cook, with especially little experience in cooking meat, so this was a huge confidence booster for me. I’ll be making it again and again! Thanks!

Made this as a special Valentine’s dinner for my boyfriend. His socks were knocked off. So much so I think you needed a telescope to see them. Amazing recipe! Pork came out like BUTTAH. And it was easy to make!

[…] is more snow coming? please, God, no — which means we’ll definitely be making this Pork Ragu with Pappardelle from Dinner: A Love Story at least one more time before temps turn warmer. It’s easy (hello, […]

My experience with crock pots, which is alot, is that for crock pots you need a lot less liquid. Its a sealed environment so the mositure doesn’t escape the way it will braising in the oven. So I would still brown it. Put the results of that in the crock pot, use diced instead whole tomatoes and cut the wine to 1/2 a cup. It will probably take 6 -8 hours on low.

Awesome recipe! I just made this tonight and it was super simple, delicious, and and did I mention just how fabulous this is? I used one-half the oil; two tablespoons is too much, I think. Either way, this is one of my new favorites. Thanks for posting this!

This is hands down the best pork shoulder recipe I’ve stumbled upon. I’ve made it 5 times since Thanksgiving and given the recipe to 3.
Diners thought I was brilliant and I basked in the praise, though I eventually pointed them to DALS.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!

So I should probably have sought clarification before this was in the oven, but… How much is “1 small pat” of butter? A knob? A stick? Somewhere in between? I went with a stick (as an ex-pat Brit, a pat of butter weighs a pound, so a small pat must be a stick, right?) but it did seem like quite a lot…

Found this recipe on Pinterest and had just bought a ton of pork (on sale) and thought this looked like a great new use for pork shoulder. Wow am I glad I made this! Much easier than the braised pork that I typically make (no veggies to cut up etc) and the flavor was amazing! I did swap the whole tomatoes for two small cans of fire roasted tomatoes but other than that it was identical. Passing this around the office and will probably be one of the first if not the first recipe posted on a new blog website I am starting…THANK YOU!

Just made the pork ragu and the only word I can use to describe it is AWESOME! I don’t remember how I managed to stumble about your website, but I’m glad I did. When I describe the website to my husband, I tell him it’s like calling up your best friend when you need a fool proof recipe that you know no matter what will turn out right. I’ve read your book from cover-to-cover and I’m looking forward to purchasing additional copies for christmas gifts! Well done!

finally got around to making this (and finishing the book). this was EPIC. seriously, my man was not only amazed by the taste of this dish but the smell in our house! and i couldnt’ agree more. can’t wait to cook my way thru DALS the book like i did with Time for Dinner!

I made this tonight and it was awesome! I used a crockpot and followed the directions adding all the same ingredients. I was nervous that there would be too much liquid but once I shredded the pork it was ok. I had it in the crockpot all day and served with the pappardelle pasta (a must!). My husband and guests loved it and wanted the recipe. Thanks!

I realize this post is old, but hopefully you can reply. When you say a can of tomatoes – do you mean at 14 1/2 oz can or a 28 oz can? I’m assuming large means 28 oz can? Plan to make this for friends on Saturday night. Looks delicious.

Making this tonight but I could only find pork butt, bone in at our grocery store. I’m going to use the slow cooker because I don’t own a Dutch oven. Any tips on how to work with a bone in piece of meat? Thanks!

This was fantastic! Thank you so much. I am so grateful to have found such a delicious, impressive dinner that I can quickly prep and bang in the oven, before returning to my daily routine of chasing my 2-year old around the house. I am pathologically incapable of following a recipe exactly, but I did my best for this one: I had a 3.5 lb bone-in pork shoulder, so I increased all the sauce components to account for that. In my excitement to use up one of the many, MANY condiment bottles in the fridge, I poured out the last 3 T of hot sauce into the braising mixture–which turned out to be straight habanero sauce. So I increased the red wine, and added a splash of orange juice and a squeeze of honey to tone down the fire. It cooked in 2.5 hours, and we ate an inappropriate amount of it–so, so good.

I got this cookbook for myself for Christmas and I feel like you’ve been with me since I was an original subscriber to Real Simple and Cookie and occasionally BA. Anyway love everything about your approach – have given it at two showers. Last night made the butternut sq soup which my meat loving husband loved. Tonight, this recipe which he promptly declared, “one of the best things you’ve ever made” (and I consider myself a pretty darn good home cook!). Just wanted you to know how much I am (and we are – my kids liked it too!) enjoying you writing and recipes. Thanks so much for writing this blog and this book!!

This was really great. I only had a 4lb roast and used it with the rest of the ingredients unchanged.

@Lindsay – I couldn’t find pappardelle pasta either. I bought fettuccine, but then ended up making my own pasta and cutting it into pappardelle sized strips. Cook’s Illustrated has a great recipe for Fresh Pasta Without a Machine (but you probably need a subscription to view it). http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/detail.asp?docid=35740

This is a family favorite. Made it yesterday with a very large roast (probably 5lbs)–I’ve gotten three meals out of it! Last night we had it over linguini (I didn’t have any pappardelle); today for lunch I brushed whole wheat flour tortillas with olive oil, sprinkled on parmesan, baked them for 10 minutes in the oven, and filled them with warmed-up leftover pork ragu. Tonight I’m making homemade pizza crusts to top with the pork ragu–I might try crumbled bleu cheese and chopped toasted pecans as toppings. My kids LOVE your recipes. I’ve made the pork dumplings, the salad pizza, and the braised short ribs multiple times. Thanks so much!

Made this tonight – it ended up super super juicy. Not at all like the picture. Next time you make this would you mind taking pictures of the steps? I must be missing something…. It tastes good but is much more tomatoey and liquidy.

i made this and have to say: it looked just like the picture! i even made it for a dinner party w/o trying it out ahead of time, because i TRUST you. i had a giant pork shoulder, though…7.5 pounds! i just added a few more tomatoes and a few more herbs. didn’t need to double anything else. it was perfect!

If I double the recipe (having 10 people over for dinner so will probably cook 3 3-1/2 lbs of pork) will it take much longer? I will put it in after work at 5 but would like to eat by 9:30. Or can I make it the night before?

I made this last night but with chicken instead of pork, and consequently stumbled upon something pretty important. DO NOT use a whole broken down bone-in chicken for this recipe. I was not thrilled with the pork quality at my TJ’s so I thought I’d substitute an organic split chicken. The taste is still amazing, but there are little tiny bones EVERYWHERE. I’m not even sure what happened to the chicken skin. It must have dissolved over the 3 hour cooking time. But these darn bones… very child-unfriendly.

I made this last night for dinner and I am in love with it. Seriously, totally in love. My girls took a bite because I couldn’t stop talking about it. Not a hit with them yet, but I will convert them because this will definitely be made a lot. Thank you!

OH. MY. LORD. You guys, I was so worried while I was making this. All of the sentiments that everyone else has expressed, I felt. I did mine in a slow-cooker, and it did, indeed, seem WAY too liquid-y. And the pork shoulder I used was skin-on, which I didn’t even realize until the skin started floating off in grotesque, gelatinous hunks. So I had to fish it all out. And then it seemed greasy. Very, VERY greasy. So I tried to taste it and burned my tongue terribly, which made me think that the sauce was bland. But as soon as I shredded the pork (and tossed in some red pepper flake, which in my opinion should be added to EVERYTHING), it all came together in a saucy, zesty, porky symphony. This stuff is AMAZING. It didn’t even need the pasta or parm. Mine didn’t really look like the pictures; it was more saucy, but MAN was it good. Fear not, fellas. It’ll come together.

Just finished making this for my parents and it smells amazing! I don’t know how I’m going to wait until dinner time to eat it. I make a lot of recipes that I find on food blogs but it takes a true gem to be a keeper and this is it! Thanks for posting my fav pork recipe!

I’ve long been a fan of this recipe made in the oven, and today decided to go the slow cooker route. I made a few adjustments to make up for the super moist environment of the cooker and avoid ending up with a sea of liquid–I got excellent, equivalent results by browning the shoulder in a big skillet first, and then putting it in the cooker. Then softening the onion and garlic, and deglazing with the wine, reducing it by about half. Drained some of the juice off the tomatoes. Dumped everything in the cooker, and when it was all done (4 hours on high, 6 to 8 on low), jazzed it up a bit with a spoonful of red wine vinegar to make up for the tomato flavor not concentrating as much in a slow cooker as it would in the oven. Hope that long-winded explanation helps those that might want to slow cook this awesome recipe.

So, my daughter with kids ages three and five fixed me this recipe when I was in Seattle while her husband was in Tokyo. The first night we had it over toasted bread slices. That was good but the next night over noodles was even better. I return to Chapel Hill define pork shoulders that were 6 pounds on sale. That seemed way too much but that was all there was. Just as easy and more of a good thing. This is an award-winning recipe in my book!

Making this for tonight! First recipe I found using a shoulder that was only 2lbs. Didn’t know what to do w it and had picked it up because it was on Sale. I am optimistic as it smells yummy right now and all I have done is brown and add ingredients. Thank you for providing recipe.

Thank you so much for this. I just finished reading your book and this was the first thing I had to make (actually, I guess the first thing I started making was a food journal!) despite not having plans for a dinner party. My husband said “this is such comfort” and my five year old said “no, it’s so yummy, and I don’t pop up with a ‘yum’ about most things!” Definitely making again, soon!

Since I am struggling finding good pork dishes decided to give this a try. Since there isn’t enough time for me to make this after work, I made it the day before and reheat while cooking the pasta. It was a hit! Good cook ahead meal for a weekday night. This is winner!!!

Not sure why it took me so long to make this – I have had your book since it was published. Made it tonight – OH. MY. So incredibly fantastic. And the smell in the house – amazing!

What interesting things have you done with the leftovers? I can’t believe there were any, but it was only my husband and I eating a 3 lb pork shoulder – kids’ palets aren’t “there” yet. Does the flavor profile [oregano / fennel / thyme] go well with a taco theme – black beans, rice, avocado?

I made this last winter for a dinner party and it was so lovely. Thank you! It’s just starting to feel like autumn in Hong Kong and I’m going to make it again for a group of friends next weekend and was thinking I might serve it with your baked polenta instead of pasta. Have you done that before?

I had to special-order the pork, and it turned out to be nearly 7 lbs! (“Well, it’s really jot that much – there is a bone in it!” they said blithely.) So, it’s in the oven, but turning this hunk of meat over is pretty much impossible (I tried, and it promptly fell back into the sauce, spattering everything within three feet with sauce. Yay!)
So, for future reference: are there any tricks for turning a big item without making your kitchen look as if somebody barfed tomato sauce all over?

i’ve done one of two things when i’ve had a piece of pork that large: either cut it in half and freeze the other piece; or braise the whole giant one. doing that just generally involves tossing in a few extra canned tomatoes, and then lifting the meat gingerly to turn (using a carving fork and a wooden spoon). I haven’t found it to be that difficult, and we freeze the leftovers.

Well, the “lifting the meat gingerly” part is where things went wrong – and I did use a carving fork and a wooden spoon but clearly not very expertly… Where did you stick your fork it, and how do you maintain control?

I just have to say, I’ve been cooking (home cooking) and following DALS with a passion for a few years now. And this is one of the top five most delicious things I have ever made. I have seen the hype, but just hadn’t gotten around to this recipe. What took me so long?! This is going to be my go-to WOW recipe from here on out.

@Donald: There is a little green button on the bottom of every post that says “Print Friendly.” Click on that and you’ll see there are all sorts of ways to print the post…with photos, without. You can delete my wind-up, etc. Please let me know if you are having any issues with it!

I made this last night for 10 adults and it was a home run! For those looking to convert to a slow-cooker recipe, I used a 5lb pork butt instead (less waste, more lean) and sliced the fat off prior to shredding. Seared the pork in a pan, sauteed the onions and garlic and then deglazed with the wine. Used 2/3 of a 28 oz. drained can of whole tomatoes which I pureed, added a 13oz can of diced tomatoes with green chilies with 1c of wine and it was still a bit too much liquid so I needed to reduce in a pan again for 10-15min once we pulled the pork out of the slow cooker. Next time, I’ll reduce the amount of tomatoes for the same amount of meat. Cooked on low for 6 hours and it was perfect! Terrific recipe, thanks Jenny and Andy!

Like so many others, I have enjoyed this recipe for years, and have been able to use the leftover pork in so many ways that seem like a completely new meal… ginger and green chile pork soup, al pastor inspired tacos… Last night’s desperate improvisation due to a last minute dinner guest and very little in the fridge was maybe the easiest and best yet, so wanted to share. Stuffed the pork ragu into a portobello mushroom (gills scraped out first; stem chopped fine and mixed in). Baked at 400 for 20 minutes with some parmesan sprinkled on top, served with a simple kale salad. Pork got just a little crispy. Delicious! Thanks once again.

I made this for guests tonight and they went nuts and ate the whole thing. I used the InstantPot to make it, as it only took 30 minutes. I cubed the pork and browned it, added the other ingredients, and set the pot to 30 minutes (natural release). Maybe I will have to look into buying the cookbook.

Hi Jenny! I have no idea if you will even read this, since I know this recipe is older… I have your book and want to make this soon! I can’t include red wine, very very sadly. Any suggestions for red wine substitutes? Thanks for all your amazing work!